MenTeach E-News
September 2014
1) Column: The Power of One
2) Wichita State University’s online survey
3) MenTeach – New England Annual Fall Meeting
4) MenTeach New England continues its work
5) More men seeking ‘manny’ work due to lousy economy
6) Gentlemen, Preschool Is Calling
7) Why Don’t More Men Go Into Teaching?
8) Very Few Jobs Besides Teaching Offer This Much Reward
9) Book on lack of black male teachers released
10) Men In Child Care Conference in Poland
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1) Column: The Power of One
[MenTeach: Don Piburn has been working in early education for years. He has been instrumental in recruiting and retaining men teachers through his work in Hawaii hosting MenTeach retreats, serving on the AEYC affiliate board and being a founding father of the World Forum Men in Early Childhood Education (MECE). These articles were written 10 years ago and are still relevant to our work today.]
Past references in this column to early childhood education’s unflinching acceptance of the shortage of male educators as a back burner issue were born out yet again at the 2004 National Association for the Education of Young Children’s (NAEYC) national conference in Anaheim, California.
Given the limited number of male attendees at the event, the proportionately small number of presentations on men’s issues, and the occasional episodic occurrence of blatant gender bias, it is clear that the task of moving menÕs issues from the margins of early childhood education into the mainstream is going to take some stamina.
Against such odds, one might wonder just how much change a single individual can hope to inspire. Fortunately, many men and women in our ranks were busy modeling the kinds of behaviors that the rest of us should aspire to. Hats off to those who presented on male issues, organized the interest forums and diversity receptions, and especially to those who were recognized for their hard work on behalf of men and diversity issues in early childhood education. You are all champions! Read Don’t editorial: /node/2509
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2) Wichita State University’s online survey
I am conducting a study on men and women who teach to see if there is a difference in perceptions of caring between those who teach in special education versus those who teach in a general education environment.
The data I would like to collect and analyze is the perception of caring between the two groups. Results of this study will directly relate to recruiting and retaining more teachers to the profession, especially for men interested in teaching. My intention is to use the Caring Ability Inventory in conjunction with the Big Five Assessment of personality to determine if there is a perception of caring difference between these two groups.
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3) MenTeach – New England Annual Fall Meeting
Attend the MenTeach – New England Annual Fall Meeting at Wheelock College and find out what’s going in the region, nation and internationally. You’ll also be able to hear a panel discussion about men teaching. Don’t miss it! See the information: /node/2495
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4) MenTeach New England continues its work
MenTeach NE continues its good work with the goal of creating excellent early care and education experiences for young children and their families through supporting the recruitment and retention of men in the ECE field with gender parity as a goal. Men and women are invited to participate in our events. See upcoming activities: /node/2494
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5) More men seeking ‘manny’ work due to lousy economy
Greg Carroll left his job as an executive chef in 2009, when his boss asked him to slash his 500-person staff by half. Since then, Carroll has done some catering, some consulting and some cooking in private homes. But full-time work has proven elusive.
So a few months ago, the 51-year-old Carroll posted an ad on Care.com, a site that pairs caregivers with potential employers. As a divorced father of four, he’s changed diapers, coached soccer and cooked healthy meals for his family. “I’m a great dad … so I thought (child care) might be something to look at.”
Read the article: /node/2497
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6) Gentlemen, Preschool Is Calling
Glenn Peters knew he would be in the minority when he started training to teach preschool as part of New York City’s rollout of universal pre-K, the largest such initiative in the country. But he didn’t realize just how rare men are in the profession until he attended a resume-building workshop for aspiring pre-K teachers.
“They couldn’t find the bathroom code for the men’s bathroom, so I actually had to go to the women’s room while someone stood guard outside the bathroom,” Peters says. “I knew at that moment that I was a bit of a unicorn.”
Today is the first day of school in New York, and experts suspect that only a sliver of the city’s roughly 1,000 new preschool teachers — hired to meet the demands of this expansion — are men. Nationally, barely 2 percent of early education teachers are men, according to 2012 labor statistics. While numbers aren’t yet available for these latest hires in New York, education researchers in the city expect the gender breakdown to be similar. Read the article, Listen to the report and Read the hundreds of comments: /node/2499
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7) Why Don’t More Men Go Into Teaching?
As Tommie Leaders, 22, approached college graduation last spring, his professors told him he would have no trouble getting hired. “You’re a guy teaching elementary, ” they said.
Mr. Leaders, who earned his education degree from the University of Nebraska in June, started teaching fifth grade last month in Council Bluffs, Iowa. He is the only male teacher in the building.
Across the country, teaching is an overwhelmingly female profession, and in fact has become more so over time. More than three-quarters of all teachers in kindergarten through high school are women, according to Education Department data, up from about two-thirds three decades ago. The disparity is most pronounced in elementary and middle schools, where more than 80 percent of teachers are women.
Educators, advocates and lawmakers fight bitterly about tenure, academic standards and the prevalence of testing, but one thing most sides tend to agree on is the importance of raising the status of teaching so the profession will attract the best candidates. Read the article: /node/2500
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8) Very Few Jobs Besides Teaching Offer This Much Reward
I would imagine that the lack of male teachers has long standing, structural causes. Teaching is not, after all, the only historically female profession that remains so. But if that is the case it’s a shame, since elementary classrooms have a lot to offer in career opportunity for men.
Even when the tasks themselves are relatively simple, the act of helping a gloriously mixed group of kids is hard. Read the rest of the articles: /node/2501
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9) Book on lack of black male teachers released
A former Suffolk school principal and her husband have co-authored a book, along with another colleague, about the shortage of black male teachers in America.
Dr. Veleka Gatling, who was principal at Elephant’s Fork Elementary School for five years before leaving in 2012 and now works in Virginia Beach Public Schools, and her husband Perez Gatling, an assistant principal at Lynnhaven Middle School in Virginia Beach, co-authored the book along with another colleague, Dr. Leroy Hamilton Jr. Read the article: /node/2504
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10) Men In Child Care Conference in Poland
There is a Men In Child Care conference called: New Horizons in Preschool being held in Krakow, Poland. Download the flyer: /node/2510
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